But what's interesting is the caption of the photo: "Andy Thomas, left, has helped others prepare for space walks, but has never flown in space himself."

Uh, didn't he fly on the last shuttle-Mir flight? I know he was originally an alternate, and thus wasn't supposed to have flown. but....

Robert Pearlman

Ironically, I was just discussing this article with someone offline when your post appeared.

Assuming the count of 142 astronauts provided by the article includes Group 19, then without them: 128 astronauts over 22 planned flights (according to Space.com) would still leave 26 seats open (assuming 7 people per flight).

Can you share your reasoning that arrived at 46?

Another version of this article also has a caption that identifies Pam Melroy as having not yet flown. Seems an image editor was using an old list...

WAWalsh

Unless, there are multiple Dr. Thomas out there, I believe this will be Andy Thomas's fourth flight.

ColinBurgess

Someone at Associated Press has really goofed. I just saw a photo of Pam Melroy on another related site and the caption on her photo (credited to AP) was much the same, saying she has never flown into space.

Hart Sastrowardoyo

quote:Originally posted by Robert Pearlman:Can you share your reasoning that arrived at 46?

Don't ask me, ask AOL, or whoever the author was. That was the headline, and it's also reflected in a sentence someplace in the middle, saying that about a third of the almost 150 astronauts may not fly.

Hart Sastrowardoyo

Sorry, cold-induced thinbking.

When I saw the hed and subhed:

Many U.S. Astronauts May Never Get to Fly /Forty-Six of the Nation's 142 Astronauts Have Not Flown in Space

I automatically combined the two and came up with "46 astronauts may not fly"- which I don't think is an unreasonable jump. At least, not in my cold-induced stupor.

Bob M

quote:Originally posted by Hart Sastrowardoyo:Many U.S. Astronauts May Never Get to Fly /Forty-Six of the Nation's 142 Astronauts Have Not Flown in Space

By my count, it's 49 active NASA Astronauts who haven't flown - not counting the 11 NASA Ascans from Group 19 and the several International astronauts who are part of Group 17. I'm counting Gregory C. Johnson who has a high position at KSC now and also C.J. "Gus" Loria who had to forfeit his seat on a Shuttle mission because of a physical problem. Both may or may not return to flight status.

I saw somewhere - probably here - that NASA wants to have all unflown astronauts fly (except Group 19) before the Shuttles are retired. So that'd be 49 rookie, unflown astronauts finding seats on a limited number of future Shuttle flights.

Bob Mc.

Hart Sastrowardoyo

quote:Originally posted by Bob M: So that'd be 49 rookie, unflown astronauts finding seats on a limited number of future Shuttle flights.

Bob Mc.

Uh-huh. And it's extremely doubtful NASA going to redo the crews to have say, an experienced commander with six rookies flying for the rest of the shuttle schedule.

Wonder what this does to the other astronauts - both those who have multiple missions and valuable experience, like Ross, and those who may have flown once or twice but believe (and want) to still fly? Coleman was hoping for a third mission, and Altman hoped he would be among those landing on the moon in 2010.

Robert Pearlman

At 22 flights, even after flying 49 rookies, you would still have 105 seats remaining, more than enough for all experienced astronauts to get at least one more flight over the next five years (again, excluding the Group 19 ascans who were already informed they would never fly on the Space Shuttle). That would average out to three rookies per flight. You then also have at least 10 more seats on Soyuz, assuming two taxi flights per year with one American on-board and that the U.S. and Russia reach an agreement for Soyuz flights beyond 2006.

[This message has been edited by Robert Pearlman (edited March 07, 2005).]

OV-105

I like how they say that Group 19 will never fly on the shuttle. The one thing I do know is never say never. I bet one or more will fly on the shuttle sometime. When 2010 comes around there will still not be anything that bring up or take down what the shuttle can. I bet we will see the shuttle still fly to the ISS with the MPLM's and a crew of three to four.

star61

If this is all true the atmospere in the astro office must be a bit tense. I would imagine a lot of retirements in the next 3/4 years, opening up several opportunities for G19.

Phil g

Robert Pearlman

Though its not unusual for news agencies to create their own headlines for wire stories, its been interesting to track the angles offered on this story simply by the change in title.

As originally released by the AP, the headline was: Grounded Astronauts Wonder About Future

From there, we saw a slight rewording: Future uncertain for nation's astronauts

Quite a few newspapers adopted that version (likely by no coincidence, but rather owned by the same parent company).

CNN rearranged the words but kept the theme:Astronauts face an uncertain future

Another group of newspapers chose to rephrase the headline as a question:Grounded astronauts: As the shuttle program nears its end, will they ever get to fly?

News channels that use the AP feed used a more straightforward approach:Many astronauts haven't made it to space yet

This is a very interesting topic. There are currently 51 (NASA) astronauts in Groups 16, 17 and 18 who haven't flown yet on the shuttle.Taking the best year NASA had as far as amount of shuttles launched, in 1985 there were 9 shuttle flights. In those missions there were 25 rookies that flew...that does not include payload specialists. Every one of those flights had a rookie pilot except one. That averages out to about 3 first timers per mission.With the shuttle now scheduled to fly only ISS missions, and with 3 orbiters, my guess is that we'll have 4 shuttle flights per year.If we keep the averages the same, we would be sending 12 rookies up per year. If the shuttle flies through 2010, as proposed, that will give us five years or roughly 60 new comers.My point is that the latest group of astronauts may very well be assigned a shuttle mission before it is phased out.

[This message has been edited by Tom (edited March 13, 2005).]

DavidH

Of course, the new administrator could change that situation, since he's endorsed reducing the number of remaining Shuttle flights.